


Of an Onyx Ring and Stupidly Named Contraceptives

by Diary



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Awkwardness, Bechdel Test Fail, Breaking Up & Making Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Friendship, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Implied Sexual Content, Insecurity, Late Night Conversations, Mentions of Contraceptives, Minor Narcissa Black/Lucius Malfoy, POV Multiple, Past Tense, Pre-Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Romance, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-03 23:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10260866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diary/pseuds/Diary
Summary: Repost. A look at Andromeda and Ted during their seventh year. Complete.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Harry Potter.

“It’s obvious you have lost all instincts of self-preservation, as well as the ability to use simple logic,” Andromeda Black declared.

Teddy Tonks winced. “Dromeda-”

She simply looked at him with disdainful eyes.

“Okay, admittedly, it sounds a bit mental-”

“It is so far beyond mental, I’m tempted to forcibly commit you to St. Mungo’s Ward for the Permanently Brain-addled.”

He tried to think of what to say before she decided she’d rather be reading in her room and kept company by the giant squid than listen to her boyfriend try to convince her of something they both knew was mental and, all-in-all, a terrible idea.

Andromeda had fascinated Teddy Tonks since their third year, he’d been in love with her since fifth, and looking at her now, all he could think was, _I want to marry you_.

Out of all the things he could say, he was smart enough not to even consider saying this.

Andromeda had a tendency to pull away. She had a tendency to be overly-critical of herself to the point where she sometimes did herself harm. Worst of all, she refused to even consider the fact she and he might last beyond Hogwarts.

“Alright, your family will likely hex me, but they wouldn’t hurt you, would they?”

“Ted, my family and I have an agreement. They don’t acknowledge the letters Narcissa writes about you and I, and I don’t do things such as bring my muggle-born boyfriend over for tea. As a result, I will keep my inheritance, and they will keep their respectable name.”

“And what if you and I get more serious?”

Sighing, she sharply replied, “I’ve never been anything less than honest about my intentions. I want my inheritance more than I want a relationship with anyone.”

He bit down the frustration and anger.

Yes, she had been extremely blunt about this on more than one occasion.

“So, I’m good enough for you to sneak into the Hufflepuff Basement, but I’m not good enough to-”

“If you want to turn this into my prejudices and selfishness, go ahead,” she said. “I am who I am, Ted. I may not try to change my faults, but I acknowledge them. I wish you all the best in your life. I hope you die a happy man. But no, I won’t forsake my inheritance for you. I won’t have my name and face burned off the family tapestry for you. If my family didn’t have a problem with me marrying a muggle-born, I wouldn’t think twice about our different blood status. However, they do care, and I won’t cross them.”

For a long moment, he simply looked at her.

“Dromeda,” he cautiously inquired, “who said anything about marriage?”

Refusing to look at him, she answered, “I found the ring, Ted. Your grandmother’s black onyx ring. You know how much I adore it. Unless you’ve been dating someone behind my back, why else would you have had it sent?”

“Oh,” he said.

She gave a bitter laugh. “Ted, we’re seventeen. You want to be newscaster for muggle news, and if your Quidditch commentary is anything to go by, you’ll do a wonderful job. I want a life you could never give me, not just due to lack of funds, but due to lack of- My family’s name is powerful. It’s feared. It’s respected.”

I want to marry you, he thought. I want us to have a baby, hopefully a little girl. I want us to grow old together. If we have grandchildren, I want to tell them all about the stupid mistakes we made and how glad we are to have made them.

“I can’t do this anymore, Andromeda,” he said. Leaning over, he chastely kissed her. “I hope that, one day, you’ll find someone and fall in love. It’s a wonderful thing. And if that person isn’t worthy, I hope Sirius does something that puts him at risk for Azkaban. Naturally, I’ll help make sure he doesn’t actually go there.”

“Oh, Merlin, don’t give that child any ideas,” Andromeda exclaimed in horror.                    

Smiling slightly, Ted waited for the rest of what he said to sink in.

“Oh,” was her soft reply.

“See you around, Andromeda.”

He turned and headed back to the castle.

0

“Hello, Head Girl Black,” a serene voice greeted. “Forgive me for saying so, but you look dreadful. Are the nargles causing mischief? I warned Alexander not to put the radio on station five. They love that sort of music, you know.”

Sitting down against the wall on the astronomy tower’s roof, Andromeda greeted, “Hello, Xenophilius. No, as far as I know, our dungeon is still nargle-free. I just need to talk to the stars.”

Xenophilius Lovegood nodded. A third year, he was a tiny boy with white-blond hair paler than Narcissa’s and dark brown, slightly crossed eyes. What he was doing in Slytherin was anyone’s guess. He was a half-blood dreamer who was prone to writing a novel’s length in his endless notebook.

Andromeda had always tried to protect him as best she could by helping him up a password on his notebook due to him having problems with invisible and vanishing ink, taking house points from those who bullied him, and trying her best to respect his beliefs without coming across as condescending. However, the last one was somewhat difficult due to the fact his beliefs were, frankly, odd and often bordering on outlandish.

“Would you like to be left alone?”

“You’re not bothering me,” she answered. “Really, I guess you could say I’m here more to try to listen than talk.”

Then again, she reflected, trying to listen to stars as if they were sentient wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of logical beliefs.

“I understand,” Xenophilius said. He went back to his writing.

Looking up at the stars, Andromeda couldn’t feel the peace she usually felt.

Ted had once said she was adeptly named and characterised the stars as her friends.

Ted, she angrily thought, was one of the lucky ones.

Oh, he was a muggle-born in a world valuing blood purity, and he’d lost both of his parents at a young age. His life was already paved with hardships, and the pavement would only get thicker, longer, and wider as time went on.

Still, he was lucky. He could go through life with a smile and draw people to him without a thought.

Andromeda could and had changed everything from her hair to her face, and she would still always be Bellatrix’s little sister. Recently, she had found herself gaining weight, and though part of her knew it would certainly distinguish her from her older sister, a part of her wasn’t yet willing to lose the little beauty she had.

Naturally, with his bizarre, idealised vision of her in his head, Ted hadn’t made any comment about it.

She wasn’t like most of her female housemates. When she asked a question, it wasn’t a subtle plea for reassurance and fawning. She didn’t hex Ted for pointing out things that were obvious.

And the point was now, moot, wasn’t it, she reflected.

Ted was no longer her boyfriend.

He’d wanted to marry her, and as far as she was concerned, this was irrefutable proof his brand of insanity just might be destructive.

It was for the best. What did they have in common, anyways?

The idiot had wanted to meet her parents despite knowing full well he might have to spend more than a few days in St. Mungo’s for his trouble.

Sighing, Andromeda stood up. “Good night, Xenophilius. Don’t get caught up here after curfew.”

“I hope things are better for you soon,” he said.

“Thank you.”

She considered telling him never to fall in love, but she knew it would be widely irresponsible to project her issues on an innocent third-year.

0

Back in the common room, Narcissa was working on an essay while Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape brewed a potion nearby. “Hello, Andromeda,” she said. “It’s so nice of you to decide to visit the dungeons for once.”

Lacking any sort of patience, Andromeda replied, “You can write to Mother and Father that the prodigal daughter has returned, Narcissa. Ted and I are no longer dating.”

Narcissa followed her to the head girl’s room and shut the door. “Andromeda. Are you- in a fix,” she quietly inquired.

Pausing in taking off her shoes, Andromeda looked at her. “No,” she finally answered. “Merlin, Cissy, I’ve gained some weight. That-”

“Has nothing to do with anything,” Narcissa interrupted. “Meda, everyone knows about that tacky old ring you love so much. Your boyfriend- Tonks was foolish enough to have it delivered in the Great Hall. And to open it there,” she added with her eyes twitching as if it were a significant struggle not to roll them. “I thought Christmas break would be spent with you and the others yelling.”

“How is it I didn’t know about the ring until last night?”

“I imagine most people were either trying to be nice and help keep it a surprise, or they were worried about Sirius and his little gang causing problems for anyone who tried to talk some sense into you. I’ve been too busy with my alchemy to afford getting into a fight at the moment.”

“Well,” Andromeda replied, “at seventeen, if I were in a fix, you can be assured, I’d be at St. Mungo’s. But no, we always used the charm, and I’ve been going to see Monsieur Pomfrey for the idiotically named contraceptive potion every Saturday before we even started.” Making a face, she snapped, “And I still want a Time-Turner so that I can hex whoever had the oh-so-brilliant and original idea to label it that!”

“Most likely a muggle-born,” Narcissa pointed out.

Andromeda shot her a cold look.

Sitting down, Narcissa asked, “If it isn’t that, what’s broken the two of you up?”

Starting to change, Andromeda said, “Despite your feelings towards him, I don’t think Ted would be the type to abandon a witch just because she-”

“I have no trouble believing he’d stick around to help with the baby, but I don’t think Tonks would be the type who would be okay with his girlfriend going to St. Mungo’s,” Narcissa said. “It isn’t prejudice to point out facts, Andromeda, and the fact is, muggles are still arguing over whether contraception is moral, of all things, and some of them outright ban getting out of a fix.”

Andromeda silently conceded the point. Muggles weren’t near as animalistic and irrational as her family believed, but there were some things about them even she wouldn’t defend. She remembered once hearing about a muggle boy who was killed for having a boyfriend, and even now, she can’t fully wrap her head around such a thing happening. At most, with the more stringent pureblood families, a witch or wizard might be disinherited for failing to provide a heir, but so long as they did, no one was particularly going to care if they didn’t prefer the person they conceived with or not.

Crawling into bed, Andromeda told her, “He wanted to meet Mother and Father. Because yes, he is a complete idiot, and I’ve never actually denied that. I’ve simply objected to the idea that him being muggle-born has anything to do with it. He has some unrealistic fantasy about he and I getting married and managing to be happy. Well, I don’t care for our family’s attitude, but I’m not willing to give up my inheritance in protest.”

“You love him,” Narcissa said.

Stretching out, Andromeda asked, “Why the sudden interest, Cissy?”

“You’ve rather ruined my preparations for Christmas,” Narcissa answered. “I declined Lucius’s offer to spend it with his family because I thought someone would need to make sure a four-way duel didn’t break out. I was going to help you pack.”

“As sorry as I am to disappoint you and to render your Christmas plans moot, the prodigal daughter has fully returned.” 

“I’ve never wanted you to choose him over us,” Narcissa said. “I simply assumed you would.”

“I think he did, too,” Andromeda replied.

0

Grabbing one of the rafts to try to hoist himself up, Teddy demanded over the megaphone, “Don’t you dare break formation!”

The rogue bludger shot up, and dropping down, he hit the ground rolling. “Don’t worry, folks, everything’s fine. As long as Macmillan doesn’t let his sentimentality get in the way and let Ravenclaw win. Speaking of which,” he added while rolling over, “brilliant fly-by by Chaser Rosie Clinton. Head in the game, Rosie; there’s no joy,” he started running and whacking the bludger with his shoe, “in us winning if you don’t give it your all.”

“Commentator Tonks is entering the field,” he added. “Sorry, Professors, no choice, you see. No one fall off their broom! Eight points for Ravenclaw with Edward Smith scoring a goal. Rosie, get back in the game! For all you know, the bludger has dark magic on it. Don’t try to stop it, just do your job and score goals. And superb protection of Macmillan by Beaters Rodriguez and Thompson.”

He fell down on his back and tried to kick the bludger with his feet. “Blimey, the sun’s bright today.”

There was only a brief pain when the bludger connected with his face.

0

When Teddy woke up, he was in the hospital wing.

Carefully sitting up, he noticed there was something around his neck. Looking down, he saw it was a protective rune hanging from the chain.

Dromeda, he thought.

“Awake, I see,” Monsieur Pomfrey said. “Ah, I see you’ve discovered Miss Black’s present. She and I had quite a disagreement over whether she could put it on you or not. Eventually, the headmaster stepped in.”

Grinning, Teddy said, “I don’t mind, Monsieur. How was she?”

“Not very well,” the nurse answered. “She had to be pushed out whenever visiting hours were over. Thankfully, that strange little Lovegood boy sat with her most of the time. I think that helped comfort her some.”

Finishing the exam, he asked, “I suppose you want to start in with your other presents, now?”

Teddy looked at the pile of presents others have left, and part of him was tempted. “Actually, I’m wondering how soon I can leave.”

0

In the library, Andromeda looked over when Teddy sat down. “You look much better. How are you feeling?”

Grinning, Teddy pulled the chain and revealed the rune under his shirt.

Andromeda shook her head. “Knowing your luck, another bludger likely would have crashed through the window and finished you off.”

“Can we go for a walk, Dromeda?” 

Nodding, she packed up her books.

0

Outside, she commented, “Your hair hasn’t been pink, lately. Or any other ridiculous colour, for that matter.”

“Been feeling a bit depressed,” he answered with a slight smile.

“I’m thinking of changing mine, again. Molly Weasley’s is a beautiful shade. How do you think I’d look as a redhead?”

“Do you love me, Andromeda?”

They stopped, and she stared.

“The thing is, everyone knows I love you. And I’m not asking this to try to get you to let me meet your parents or accept my proposal. I just want to know.”

She started to walk away, and he grabbed her hand. “Yes or no, Andromeda Black. That simple.”

Freeing her hand, she took a deep breath and refused to look over. “I’ve made my choices, Ted.”

“And I just told you, I’m not trying to change them. Hell, you can even give me the ‘I love you as a friend and/or brother speech’, if you want. Lie, if you can’t handle telling the truth. Just give me an answer.”

She turned towards him, steeled herself, and then, pushed past him and ran.

0

“Hello, Head Girl Black.”

Startled, Andromeda looked up.

Unable to keep exasperation out of her voice, she asked, “Xenophilius, who put you up there?”

A branch through his robes was holding him above the ground, and his notebook was stuck to another nearby tree.

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “They used blackout powder.”

Getting him down, she said, “We’re going the infirmary,” and set to work on getting the notebook unstuck.

Finally, getting it free, she did a couple of detection spells before handing it to him. “I don’t think it’s been damaged.”

“Thank you.”

“Come on,” she said.

“You’re even sadder than you were this morning.”

“Yes, well, sometimes, people get involved when they know they shouldn’t. Hopefully, you won’t have the same experience.”

“I’m never getting involved with anyone,” he declared.

Surprised, she looked down at him.

He nodded. “Yes, I’ve given it careful consideration, and I’ve come to accept that no boy or girl will ever be able to understand me. And if no one can understand me, no one can fall in love with me.”

“Not everyone falls in love with the first person they date,” Andromeda pointed out.

The awareness she needed to try to do something about Xenophilius’s belief he was unlovable settled in, but it was mixed with the knowledge she had no idea what she could or should do.

“That’s true,” he agreed. “That works for some people. But for people like me, the thought of possibly falling in love with someone while knowing the relationship is going to end is a terrible one. It might make me a coward, but that’s okay. I’ll be too busy trying to find the Crumple-Horned Snorkack to notice if I’m missing anything.”

Andromeda thought of a bouncy blond boy talking a mile a minute and going compartment to compartment on his first ever trip to Hogwarts. Through first year to seventh, Ted had dated girls. It usually hadn’t last long, and it almost always ended on a friendly note. In his fourth year, he had his heart broken and spent two months sequestering himself from everyone. During fifth, Sirius had insisted he and Andromeda go on a date.

There wasn’t going to be a second one, except, for the fact there turned out to be a second one. Then, the second date turned into them walking around Hogwarts while holding hands. Eventually, this had turned into Andromeda going to Monsieur Pomfrey for horrendously named contraceptive potion (someday, she’ll find the descendant of whoever named it and hex them if she can’t hex their ancestor) and sneaking into the Hufflepuff Basement and into the boy’s dorms.

Finally, it had turned into a beautiful onyx ring and a call for the truth.

She deposited Xenophilius at the hospital wing and went to find Ted.

0

Once she found him, she said, “Okay. I apologise for running away like that. It was childish.”

“Yes or no?”

She fought back the urge to run again.

Taking a breath, she answered, “Yes, I love you. I’ve probably been in love with you since fifth year. But, and this is putting aside my family, I don’t want to get married at seventeen or eighteen or nineteen. I probably won’t want to get married at twenty, either. I don’t want to have children until, at least, one of us has a stable career. There’s also the fact, and I realise I should have told you this sometime ago, that if I were to accidentally get pregnant, I would terminate the pregnancy.”

Ted blinked.

“So, when you’re ready to get married, can I meet your parents?”

“Why do you have to make everything sound so simple!”

Grinning, he reached over. “You want to marry me, Dromeda. Just not at this moment. I can live with that. As much as I want to have a baby with you, I do have some Hufflepuff sensibility to me and understand that it’d best to wait until we can give her or him the best home possible. And as for the other thing- well, honestly, I never really thought much of it. I figured if you did accidentally get pregnant, we’d talk about it and decide where to go from there. Obviously, you have thought about it, and you already know what would be the best choice.”

“And you wouldn’t have a problem with it?”

“No,” he answered. For a moment, he looked thoughtful. “Look, fifth year, there was a mate of mine. She didn’t want anyone to know. During the weekend, we snuck out off, went to a muggle hospital. I didn’t do any memory charms, I swear, but I forged some papers, lied and said I was the father, held her hand. After it was done, we came back. She graduated, and from what I’ve heard, her life’s going pretty well.”

Overwhelmed with pride and admiration, Andromeda leaned over to kiss him.

0

On a bench, Narcissa looked up from her book and said, “Hello, Ted Tonks. I notice my sister is wearing your grandmother’s ring.”

Nodding, Ted sat down next to her. “I’d have expected more subtlety from you, Narcissa, than a rogue bludger.”

“I don’t approve of you,” she declared. “However, for the last two years, I’ve treated you civilly. You hurt my sister. This is a warning. I know I’ll never be welcome at Andromeda’s house, but if she ever sees sense and leaves you, she and any children of hers will be welcome at mine.”

“Does Malfoy know that?”

“Yes. He and I have discussed it.”

Teddy thought of the little half-blood Slytherin who was constantly getting into fights with Sirius, Severus Snape, and how strikingly gentle Lucius Malfoy treated him. While Malfoy could manipulate with the best of them, whenever he watched the two, Teddy always got the feeling it was more than manipulation on Malfoy’s part; he seemed to genuinely be fond of Severus for reasons beyond Severus’s proficiency at potions and charms.

“Fair enough. I do love your sister.”

“You’re the fool in love with the fool,” she answered. Standing, she added, “Happy Christmas, Tonks.” 

“Happy Christmas, Narcissa.”

In the distance, he saw Andromeda showing the ring to Sirius and some others.

Merlin, did she look beautiful.


End file.
